The resonator fiber optic gyroscope (RFOG) is a promising contender for next generation navigation gyroscope. It has the potential to provide a navigation grade solution with the combination of low cost, small package size and weight. The RFOG uses at least two laser beams, at least one propagates around a resonator coil in the clockwise (CW) direction and the other in the counter-clockwise (CCW) direction. In the operation of a resonant fiber optic gyroscope (RFOG), it is desirable to lock the frequencies of the laser light sources to the resonance frequencies of the fiber optic ring resonator using high bandwidth electronic servos. It is also known that operating the CW and CCW laser beams on different resonance modes of the fiber optic ring resonator can suppress single direction optical backscatter errors that degrade gyro performance. However, this is an incomplete solution because operating the CW and CCW laser beams on different resonance modes also introduces the gyro resonator free spectral range (FSR) as a component of the rotation rate measurement, which introduces temperature sensitivity errors to the rotation measurement. Furthermore, resonator lineshape asymmetries, for example, from either polarization errors or from double optical back-reflections or double backscatter will introduce a resonance center detection error that will be different between resonance modes and therefore introduces a rotation sensing error with a complex dependence on temperature.
For the reasons stated above and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the specification, there is a need in the art for alternate systems and methods for providing resonance switching resonator fiber optic gyroscopes (RFOGs) with feed-forward processing.